Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will be very parochial in respect of Pillar 2. I come here frustrated and annoyed - and those are light words to use for how I feel - by what has happened in Wicklow specifically. A total of 194 houses were going through the four stages in Wicklow, 34 of which reached stage 4 approval in mid-December last year. The planning permission runs out on Saturday. I have heard about the eight-stage process and the four-stage process and I hear of oversight, approval processes, criteria, checks and balances, and governance. This was 20% of the total stock of social housing for Wicklow. In all the checks and balances, did no one pick up on the fact the planning permission would run out on this project? Who, if anyone, is responsible for this? Is it the developer, the proprietor, the affordable housing body, the local authority or the Department? Something has gone radically wrong with the process if something like this is allowed to happen. None of the other projects in Wicklow is at stage 4 in the process, so we have no hope of delivering these 34 houses for Arklow.

I ask the Chairman for a little leniency as I must go into the Dáil at 4 o'clock. I wish to refer to homelessness before I leave. Deputy Coppinger is right. We all want to solve the problem. There is nobody here who does not want to solve it. It is disappointing that the homelessness figures, month on month and since Rebuilding Ireland, have gradually gone up and up. We have seen a 10% increase in families and an 8% increase in children becoming homeless. We have seen a 21% increase in the use of private accommodation, hotels, and bed and breakfast accommodation, and a 13% increase in supported temporary accommodation to accommodate homeless people. I know the Minister means well and wants to get people out of hotels by July, but they should not be moved out of hotels if we are going to move them into worse accommodation. Let us not make that mistake.

The use of residential developments in Dublin and other cities outside the planning laws has also been identified by the Minister, and I have also spoken on the matter. I know the Minister wrote to all local authorities asking them to take action on the use of properties for short-term letting on a long-term basis. Has anything been done to follow up on any action taken by local authorities? We all know now that thousands of properties are being used for short-term letting on a long-term basis in cities.

Regarding rapid-build housing and the shortfall in its delivery, is it now time to move some of the money from the rapid-build programme to the voids programme? The latter can deliver more quickly for us in the long term.

I thank the Chairman for her leniency in accommodating my contribution.